Rady works to shrink ER wait times

From adding more beds to tweaking the way health care workers see patients, Rady Children’s Hospital is working to reduce wait times for the thousands of kids and parents who come through its emergency department each day.

Dr. Irvin “Buzz” Kaufman, senior vice president of health affairs at Rady, said the hospital convened a blue-ribbon panel last February after realizing that the amount of time that emergency patients were waiting was longer than the industry average.

At the time, Kaufman said, the average wait, from walking through the ER’s front door to walking out, was 180 minutes. Today, he said, that average time is 147 minutes; better, but still not low enough for Kaufman and his colleagues to declare victory.

“When we started, we said our goal was to get to 120 minutes (average wait time) by June 30. I can’t promise that we will, but we’re sure going to try,” Kaufman said.

He said that reaching 120 minutes would put Rady in the top 25 percent of children’s hospitals, according to data collected by the Child Health Corporation of America. The organization, which represents 42 hospitals nationwide, did not respond to a request for more specific information.

When compared with other large hospitals in the region that time — two hours and 45 minutes, does not look terribly bad. The median door-to-door time at UCSD Medical Center in La Jolla was 3 hours and 45 minutes, while it was 3 hours and 48 minutes at Scripps Mercy.

While the average is 147 minutes at Rady, Kaufman added that, during very busy times of day, especially in the evening hours, waits can be longer. Handling what can be hundreds of patients in an evening, the doctor said, is always daunting.

“It’s really been a struggle to stay ahead of the demand,” Kaufman said.

One part of the hospital’s fight to shrink wait times involves better communication with family doctors who refer patients to Rady. The idea, Kaufman said, is to reduce the number of children with minor problems who end up in the hospital’s waiting room even though they could be treated at an urgent care center.

“We know that the emergency room is not a good place for a routine problem. We reach out to doctors and patients, but some will still drive, even from somewhere like Temecula, to have their child seen in a pediatric ER,” Kaufman said.

Over the last year Rady has tried to change the way it works in order to push wait times down.

There are also plans to increase the department’s total capacity by relocating the hospital’s orthopedic clinic, which currently sits next to the ER.

Today, the ER is able to use the clinic’s 18 beds when the orthopedic department closes at 6 p.m., bumping the total number of beds from 22 to 36, said LesleyAnn Carlson, director of Rady’s emergency care center. Once the clinic is fully relocated in July, she said, that capacity will be available at all times.